The Basics: Eric Balfour is Jarrod, a slacker artist-type visiting his bestie Terry (Donald Faison) with his pregnant girlfriend Elaine (Scottie Thompson) in tow. He awakens at 4 a.m. after a crazy night of partying to find that mysterious alien invaders are shining blue lights in windows and snatching up most of the population of Los Angeles. Holed up in Terry’s penthouse, the survivors watch as the outside world turns into a battle zone and wonder if they should stay put or make a break for it. Turns out there’s no right answer because whether you run or hide, the superaliens will eventually come for you. Those human brains aren’t going to harvest themselves.

What’s The Deal: This effects-heavy indie film, made for a reported $10 million by directing duo/visual effects artists Greg and Colin Strause, manages to create scope and fantastical destruction with only a small cast, a single location (a mostly empty luxury condo complex in Marina del Rey with stunning panorama views of the city), and an impressively detailed armada of computer generated alien ships and creatures. The Brothers Strause can go ahead and pat themselves on the back for that technical achievement, but then they must answer for the rest of Skyline, an absolute mess of a movie filled with repetitive time-wasting character choices and relationship squabbles that reaches a completely ridiculous and unexpected (but not in a good way) conclusion. In a way it turns into the Strauses’ first directorial effort, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem, but I’ll leave the details of exactly how it does for you to discover on your own.

The Politics Of Skyline: For a movie sold on the image of awesome-looking aliens destroying Los Angeles, Skyline has a lot to say about masculinity in the modern world. (It also amusingly casts Donald Faison’s Terry as a successful commercial visual effects filmmaker who bosses around his assistant and cheats on his girlfriend.) The message is this: Instead of listening to the weepy cowards who want to sit around and do nothing, man up and take charge and go rip out your enemies’ guts -- with your bare hands, if need be! -- in defense of your women and (unborn) children. Also, as highlighted in a party scene in which jerky revelers spy on their neighbors’ love lives, homosexuality is super gross.

The Other Movies The Brothers Strause Clearly Own On DVD That Skyline Cribs From:Bad Boys II (in particular, the scene in which bad guys “throw” cars at Will Smith and Martin Lawrence and one flips in the air over Lawrence’s head, missing it by mere inches), Face/Off (the running of one’s fingers down a loved one’s face as gentle caress), Alien.

See It If You Like/Don't Mind the Sound Of: Los Angeles being laid to waste; shallow people being eaten and/or barfed back up by aliens; Donald Faison shirtless; Eric Balfour’s abs; actors staring out windows; illogical things happening for convenience’s sake; a great-looking stealth fighter flight sequence seen from afar; aliens with blue glowy heads and tentacles that are at once mechanical and fleshy; the black-veiny, milky-eyed CG effect used when a person gets entranced by the evil alien beam; a flashback that occurs 10 minutes in that replays exactly what you’ve just seen.

Comments (15)

What a waste of money and time. I will be blunt....this movie really sucked. No real beginning, no real plot, and at the end you wonder why you stayed as long as you did.

Chris - 11-12-2010 11:20 PM

Special effects were pretty awesome but I'd recommend you save your $

extreamdays - 11-13-2010 12:54 AM

Looked like a good cast. Don't waste your money cause the Trailer is miss leading to a pointless move of which science is thrown out the window. They should of nuked the move and gave the money left over for Haiti.
It would of been a better way to use the money

tenjen20 - 11-13-2010 5:59 PM

Don't do it. Trust me. Worst movie I can remember. My husband and I both were laughing at it as we predicted each "development". Until the end, that is. They sure surprised us on that one. But don't think you want to go see it for that. Please, don't do it.

Scott - 11-13-2010 6:42 PM

Yes, that flashback early on was the most time wasting flashback ever..I mean, usually a flashback is used to explain something, that was just the same scene playing over for no apparent reason..padding maybe? I was wondering if someone just missed it when editing the film.
Ok, the car stomp was the best part...and the stealth fighter sequence.
Lamest? How about the lighter incident? Or the way they ended up back in the same room after the escape attempt. Did they only have enough budget to rent one room?
Best untintentional humor...asking neighbor to keep quiet after they had an all night loud party.

Tom - 11-14-2010 1:16 AM

Horrible movie...I kept praying Will Smith was going to come in and save the day....

LOL - 11-14-2010 6:44 PM

This review made me laugh at the end :) but IDC what anyone saids I like it alot. but I also have a knack for cheese movies. But I an't wait for battle of LA

Valecia - 11-16-2010 11:52 AM

Worst movie I have seen all year. Don't waste your time or money! The movies lacks substances. No meaning. Just a bad movie!

Kyle - 11-17-2010 7:16 AM

By far one on the worst movies i have ever seen, it is up their with Plan 9 from outerspace, the winner of the golded Turkey award every year, The movie lacked any sort of story line, sure i have always wanted a movie where the bad guys win, but i wanted to to be a fair fight, i should have expected that because it is from the same guy that directed AVP Requiem.

rm - 11-17-2010 9:28 AM

I was going to write more, but every commenter here is straight up right - this is a horrendous flick. Should have guessed by the fact that the top 'stars' of this movie were TV-show second bananas (still, Donald Faison deserves better). Why was this not straight to video? I fail to see the need for what passed for 'character development' for 2/3 of the cast given the ultimate plot. The hokey ending was just the rotten cherry on a crap sundae already drenched in crap sauce and sprinkled with crap. On the bright side, you can use this 'film' to practice your riffing in case TV producers decide to revive "Mystery Science Theatre 3000"

Daniel - 11-19-2010 11:44 AM

I saw this movie. Not good at all.

bumblefoot2004 - 11-19-2010 5:50 PM

Military helicopter puts three soldiers on roof miles from battle scene, helicopter leaves. Helicopter returns 5 minutes later. Why? Why oh why? Aliens aren't hovering over water because people DON'T live over open water. Trying to run from alien ships with anti-gravity drives on a 100-foot yacht is a good idea? Like they won't be able to catch up? Or that the aliens won't go after them? What? This movie is why people pirate movies: they're smart enough not to pay to see something this lame. Skyline steals ideas from Independence Day and Cloverfield and insults your intelligence.

Ray - 11-22-2010 10:28 PM

I agree with most of the above. I think it might be one of the top 5 worst films of ever saw. Shoot the writer and feed him and the director
live to one of their absurd aliens. The producer can be spared so that
he can tell this tale of woe and retardation to other producers so they
wont be tempted to make a sequel to it!

FuriousStyles - 4-22-2011 4:42 AM

this movie was quite distasteful, especially at the end. This movie made me sick.

curtis - 5-03-2011 2:57 PM

OMG! im a movie buff, watch a LOT of movies and i think this has got to be the worst ive ever seen. ive seen b movies that put this to shame. what a waste of ten millon. dang give me five and ill make a better movie with my camcoeder,lol.

Movies.com, the ultimate source for everything movies, is your destination for new movie trailers, reviews, photos, times, tickets + more! Stay in the know with the latest movie news and cast interviews at Movies.com.